Wednesday 19 August 2009

Next 48 hours crucial for Portsmouth

Back on 4th August Portsmouth FC announced that additional funds were required to finance the club and that, should the takeover not take place, additional player sales would be required. With only 10 days to go until the end of the transfer window, the club now needs to take some hard decisions.

The club need revenue to finance ongoing running costs until the next tranche of Sky payments in the new year. Al Fahim's plans were to include the provision of new funds as part of the takeover. However securing new funds has proved so difficult that the new funds injection now looks far from certain. The transfer window closes on 31 August and as we recently reported, the club will need to make a decision in the next 48 hours on whether they believe the takeover will go ahead. If the club is not absolutely certain that the takeover is going to provide the new funds before 31 August, then player sales must be made to preserve the club financial position. With the Premier League requiring a week to process the 'source of funds' submission, the club are aware that they need to make a decision now.

Recent reports in the Telegraph make interesting reading and support this site's long-term contention that Al Fahim does not have the required funds to complete the takeover. The prospect of Al Fahim borrowing against future TV revenue streams is clearly a desperate move for Al Fahim. The Sky TV money for a Championship club is around £2m per season (as oppose to the circa £40m that is earned in the Premiership. Any prospective lender would take this uncertainty of income into account. With Portsmouth one of the favourites to finish in the bottom six, it is unclear whether banks will indeed see the arrangement as sound investment.

4 comments:

  1. "Back on 4th August Portsmouth FC announced that additional funds were required to finance the club and that, should the takeover not take place, additional player sales would be required."

    And then all of a sudden, Fahim announces he's in line for a 100M pound bonus (despite his company Hydra crashing and burning over the last 12 months).

    Could just be good luck. But more likely it is an attempt to convince others to front the cash on the basis that 'I can pay you back later from my bonus'. Or possible a way for any undeclared financial backers to front up cash that Fahim can claim as his own.

    Interestingly, Fahim mouthpiece Arabian Business carried the story on 17th of Fahim's bonus, which contained quotes from Fahim 'bigging up' his bonus.

    Today, an article appeared in the same publication, also from Fahim's de facto PR man Anil Bhoyrul, in which Fahim was complaining of all the publicity about his finances. The previous article from 2 days before in which Fahim proudly announced the bonus himself was pulled, and is now a 404.

    Then the article from today in which Fahim made the complaints was also pulled.

    Presumably Bhoyrul and Fahim are getting their knickers in a twist over this mixed up PR messages they are sending out. It seems Bhoyrul is doing his paymaster a favour by 1984ing them out of existence.

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  3. Faircomment, you forgot the parachute payments for two years after the drop. About £11 million + £2 million.

    Flackster, the articles were pulled to rename and verify, it happens on all online news providers nothing strange.

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  4. Martin, I've searched Arabian Business, not a (non-pork) sausage there about Fahim's 165M USD bonus. Nada. Zilch. And nothing about the article two days later in which Fahim expressed annoyance at the 'mischief' surrounding the bonus he announced 2 days later.

    Google still shows the link to the page in search results (but I guess won't for much longer now it is 404):

    Pompey chairman appeals for 'end to mischief' over bonus - Sport ...
    18 Aug 2009 ... BONUS TALK: Sulaiman Al Fahim says bonus reports are a distraction to his takeover of Portsmouth FC. (ITP Images) ...
    www.arabianbusiness.com/565234-pompey-chairman-appeals-for-end-to-mischief-over-bonus -

    It was picked up by a news aggregator, just in case you think I am making it up that AB published such a story:

    http://zinza.com/ViewArticle/Arabian%2BBusiness/Pompey%2Bchairman%2Bappeals%2Bfor%2B%2527end%2Bto%2Bmischief%2527%2Bover%2Bbonus

    So you have the links - go find the 'renamed and verified' story on AB if you can.

    Good luck! You will need it as the story is not there, renamed or otherwise.

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